by George Baxt
“Horathy appeared on the local scene long before Van Weber,” said Singer.
“The advance guard,” said Woollcott, looking very pleased with himself. “Everything awaiting him but rose petals strewn in his path. He sets up his office, Mercury is set up with Ziegfeld, and soon there’s heavy traffic in dope addicts. So who killed Ilona Mercury?”
“Lacey Van Weber,” said Mrs. Parker, so softly they had to strain to hear her. “Miss Mercury, as it has been impressed upon us by Charlotte Royce among others, is no longer a seller’s market. She’s over the hill. The body’s still good, but the looks are starting to go. She wanted a bigger share of whatever she was getting with which to feather the nest I assume she was planning for herself, oh, probably in the South of France, someplace like that, where they favour fading beauties. Maxine Elliot and Pearl White have settled there.”
“And Somerset Maugham,” added Woollcott.
“Don’t be bitchy on an empty stomach, Alec.” Mrs. Parker turned to Singer. “Lacey’s probably regretted not shedding himself of Miss Mercury in Mexico, but I suppose at the time his mind was hypnotized with promises of future glory. So typical of Miss Mercury with her kind of ego to select George’s pied-a-terre for the scene of her shakedown. It sort of insinuates itself subtly that she, too, enjoys the company of man of distinction and power. “
“Kaufman has the power of a kitten’s fart,” snorted Woollcott.
“You haven’t noticed Mr. Van Weber's hands. They’re long and sinewy, very powerful; I know. I’ve felt them.” She was making Jacob Singer uncomfortable. Woollcott’s lips were pursed, and he was looking for a sign of the invisible torch he was positive Mrs. Parker was carrying. “I don’t mind telling you, I feel very depressed and very unhappy about my feelings about him. I mean, I’m sure somebody had to love Jack the Ripper. You realize, of course, Miss Mercury was not his first victim. It was he who murdered his brother. Isn’t it all so terribly Nietzschean?”
Woollcott sighed. “Nietzsche come, Nietzsche go.”
Singer folded his arms and said, “Now all we have to do is prove this.”
“We’ll do that tomorrow,” said Mrs. Parker firmly. “He has asked me to run away with him. If the offer still holds, I shall tell him I’m going.”
“Don’t you dare!” spumed Woollcott.
“Oh, shut up, Alec, and drink your drink. Of course I’m not going. I just plan to lull him into a false sense of security. As we go about preparing to decamp, I shall gaily ask my beloved why he murdered Miss Mercury and his brother and God knows how many others.”
“At which point,” said Woollcott, “if he has any brains at all, he murders you.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Parker, “and Mr. Singer will be there to protect me, won’t you, Mr. Singer? Alec, you’re such an innocent. We’ve been set up just the way George Raft was set up. We’re the cheese in the mousetrap. That’s why we’re participating in what I presume is to be an incredibly bizarre adventure tomorrow night. Mr. Singer is out to score the biggest victory of his career, and nothing must interfere. Anyone else and everyone else is expendable. Mr. Singer is an ambitious man, so ambitious, it’s Shakespearean. He cultivates the cultured, and when he stumbles upon an opportunity to capitalize on heroics, score that big score, he seizes it with both hands. Mr. Cassidy almost blew the deal for Mr. Singer, but the gods proved to be on Mr. Singer’s side, and well they should be. He’s honest and upright and deserving, and Mr. Cassidy is a write-off.”
“Lady,” asked Singer, “are you condemning me for having raised my sights?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Singer. I am jealous. I shrink from ambition. I don’t want to make history, I just want to make love. I meet others every so often who want to make love, too, but only every now and then, never permanently. So you probably don’t understand how I can feel this emotional about a liar, a cheat, a murderer. It’s because for a brief moment I saw the other side of the moon, what might have been, and what might have been, might have been just perfectly lovely.”
Woollcott announced grandly, “We have just heard a brief discourse from Pollyanna, the Glad Girl.”
“Oh, I’m a very glad girl, Alec. Very glad to be a part of this experience. It’s new, it’s refreshing …”
“And it’s dangerous,” growled Woollcott.
“You wouldn’t miss it for the world and neither would I. We’re looking forward to dining out on it for months. And believe it or not, I’m getting hungry and drunk, in no particular order. I’m assuming, Alec, that Mr. Singer has made elaborate preparations for tomorrow night. We’ll be up to our hips in guardian angels and saviours, won’t we, Mr. Singer?”
“You’re going to have a perfectly wonderful time,” Singer assured her. He saw Yudel Sherman crossing the room toward them. “Here’s one of my associates,” said Singer, and introduced Yudel. Yudel sat down.
“Excuse the interruption, Jake, but I got bad news.” Singer waited. “Al Cassidy shot himself to death. Through the heart.”
“Did he leave a note?” asked Singer.
“Yeah,” replied Yudel, refraining from adding, exactly the way you dictated it, Jake. “He was depressed and not feeling good.”
“You tell his wife?”
“Yeah. She handled it okay. She said he ain’t been acting right for a long time.”
“He sure ain’t been,” agreed Singer. “That’s real bad news. Real sad. When’s the funeral?”
“Sunday, just like you figured.” Singer’s face reddened. Yudel stifled a gasp at his slip-up.
“It’s okay, Yudel,” said Singer as he signaled the waiter to bring a round of drinks, “the folks are in on it. You know, Mrs. Parker, when the drinks get here, I want to propose a toast to Al Cassidy. The toast is for the Al Cassidy we used to know, not what he turned in to. I’ll always love him for what he used to be.” Sherman quickly left the table and looked for the men’s room. Mrs. Parker put her hand over Singer’s.
“Ain’t life just awful?” said Mrs. Parker.
The drinks arrived when Yudel Sherman returned, his face freshly washed. Mrs. Parker was deep in thought, and Woollcott offered a penny for them. “Believe it or not, I was thinking about George Raft. Last night at Neysa’s party, he made some crack about not knowing what Lita Young was doing there, when all the time he knew exactly what she was doing there.” She was bristling. “I wish you’d keep him locked up in the Tombs forever.”
“Unfortunately, Mrs. Parker, that would be against the law.” Singer got the waiter’s eye. “I think we should eat.”
On Saturday morning, shortly before noon, Mrs. Parker was awakened by the telephone. It was Robert Benchley calling from Grand Central Station. “I expected you to see me off, arms laden with lilies and other acceptable assorted flora.”
“You’re really going?” she asked sleepily.
“That’s what the wife asked, except she sounded suspiciously gleeful. I’m sorry to miss the party tonight.”
“You’ll be hearing about it in detail for the rest of your life. What’s the weather like out there?” Mrs. Parker’s drapes were drawn against the day and against reality.
“In the stygian depths of Grand Central, it’s very sombre and very gloomy and my what a pretty thing just passed by carrying a hatbox.”
“Hatboxes in Grand Central usually contain a severed head.”
“They’re announcing my train.” He sounded sad. “Goodbye, Mrs. Parker. I shall try to remember to send you pretty postcards. Be a good girl. Stay away from foolish involvements.”
“The trouble with that, Mr. Benchley, is I never know an involvement is foolish until I’m too deeply involved.” There was a rapping at her door. “There’s someone at the door.”
“It’s me! Neysa!”
“It’s Neysa,” relayed Mrs. Parker.
“That’s mighty Neysa her,” said Mr. Benchley, and hung up. Mrs. Parker got out of bed, struggled into a negligee, unlocked the door and admitted Neysa, who was carrying a piping hot pot
of coffee.
“This place looks like the inside of a tomb,” commented Neysa.
“When were you ever inside a tomb?” asked Mrs. Parker while drawing open the drapes on both windows.
Neysa ignored the question. Having set the coffee pot on the table she was now foraging in the kitchen for cups and saucers. “Jack and I are in your section of the caravan tonight. So’s George Kaufman.” Mrs. Parker was in the bathroom brushing her teeth. “Your Mr. Van Weber phoned last night with these fresh instructions. I have an idea he’s invited so many people, he’s running low on limousines.”
“If he’s running low on limousines,” said Mrs. Parker, heading for a cup of coffee, “we’ll have to drop him.”
“Where were you last night? Van Weber was looking for you.”
“He should have thought of trying Tony’s. He was the one who first recommended it to us.”
“Who were you with?”
“Woollcott and Jacob Singer. Then we were joined by another detective, Yudel Sherman.” She was sitting now and enjoying the aroma of the fresh brew.
“Were they mourning their associate?”
“How do you know about Al Cassidy?”
“It’s in the morning World. Small item at the bottom of the front page. You know I always read the small print on everything.”
Small item, thought Mrs. Parker. Small item for big treachery. “Yes, it was a kind of a wake last night, but by the fourteenth round of booze we were feeling ever so gay.”
“How’s your head?”
“I’m not sure. Is it still there?”
“What are you wearing tonight?”
“I was thinking of this spiffy little number I picked up in Paris at a discount, thanks to Sara Murphy. It’s a little trifle Worth dreamed up, flesh-coloured peau de sole.”
“Whatever that means.”
“And what are you wearing?”
“I was thinking of a middy blouse and gym bloomers. Not sexy, but practical.”
“That sounds like a nice epitaph. The coffee’s nice.”
“It’s laced.”
“I know.”
“Are you planning to go off with Lacey Van Weber?” Mrs. Parker lowered her coffee cup.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“He mentioned that he’d asked you last night when he called.”
“A girl isn’t safe any place these days. Well, what do you think? Should I go off with him?”
“Have you been to bed with him?”
“Yes.”
“Good performer?”
“Top of the bill.”
“That helps. He’s terribly good-looking and so marvellously urbane and so terribly wealthy.”
“Why, yes, my dear,” agreed Mrs. Parker, then inquiring archly, “but is that enough?”
They enjoyed a laugh together, but Neysa’s question hung disconsolately in the air, unanswered.
“What are you thinking?” Neysa asked.
“I’m wishing.”
“What are you wishing?”
“I’m wishing this was Sunday.”
At ten minutes to six that evening, George S. Kaufman telephoned Mrs. Parker to tell her the transportation was waiting for him downstairs, and they would be soon picking up her group. Mrs. Parker assured him that she and the Baragwanaths were ready. She then phoned Woollcott to relay the message.
“Nervous?” he asked.
“Isn’t everyone on opening night?”
Their transportation was impressive. It was an Isotta-Fraschini town car. Mrs. Parker recognized the chauffeur. He had a scar on his right cheek running from his ear to his mouth. After they picked up Woollcott and were headed for the bridge that would lead them to Long Island, Woollcott asked Mrs. Parker with a wicked look on his face, “No overnight bag, dear?”
“Why, no, Alec, Mr. Van Weber has everything one needs out there, should one care to need it.” She wished somebody would raise the window that would separate them from the chauffeur. It wasn’t snobbery; it was precaution.
Woollcott was wondering if Jacob Singer was already out there, somewhere in the vicinity of the estate. He had been under the impression that Van Weber had extended an invitation to Singer at Neysa’s party. Singer probably preferred the use of his own vehicle to one provided by his host. He’d read penny dreadfuls where town cars such as this were rigged up to suffocate the passengers with poison gas, and subconsciously, Woollcott began sniffing the air.
“Alec,” said Kaufman, “are you longing for a fire hydrant?”
“No, you leper’s buttock, I thought I smelt something peculiar.”
“Jack,” Neysa leaned forward to her husband, “are you wearing that awful hair tonic?”
“No, dear,” he said affably, “just a trace of chicken fat.” The man at the wheel was an incredibly good driver. They made it to East Cove in under an hour.
“Alec?” It was Neysa again. “Are you promising to be on your best behavior? I know how violent you can get in the midst of rampant ostentation.”
“I was thinking I might spend the evening striking poses.”
“He has an airplane,” said Mrs. Parker. “Maybe he’ll take you for a ride.” She could envision the difficulty the portly Woollcott would have settling into the cockpit.
Woollcott said contemptuously, “Nobody’s going to take me for a ride.” Mrs. Parker saw the chauffeur’s face in the rear-view mirror and didn’t like his expression one bit.
Once on the road leading to the main house, Mrs. Parker said, “Welcome to Abaddon.”
“Is that what he calls this place?” asked Baragwanath.
“Abaddon,” explained Kaufman, “is the name of the biblical netherworld.”
“George, you’re so knowledgeable,” said Mrs. Parker.
“I know,” agreed the playwright, “but I’m not clever.”
The trees along the driveway were prettily festooned with Japanese lanterns. The branches were intertwined with dazzling varieties of fairy lights. As they approached, they could hear the music of an orchestra, and in the distance, the lighthouse was aglow with what Mrs. Parker felt was an unusual incandescence. They could see guests wandering about the front lawn with maids and waiters carrying trays of food and drink.
“Some small gathering on the spur of the moment,” muttered Mrs. Parker. “I wonder what he’d accomplish if given a decent amount of time.”
“What are you thinking, George?” asked Woollcott. “I’m thinking Mr. Van Weber is just a big show-off.”
“Hush, dear,” cautioned Mrs. Parker, “chauffeurs have ears.” She wondered where was the thug who was missing part of his right ear. Probably at target practice, she decided. “Neysa, what’s that strange expression on your face?”
“I’m rehearsing being decorous and aloof. It’s bad taste to be impressed by other people’s wealth, especially when other people have bad taste.”
The town car pulled up in front of the mansion. “All right, you aardvarks,” snapped Woollcott, “tidy up your minds and into the fray we go.”
Lacey Van Weber saw the car arriving through a window of the dining room. He hurried outside to greet them. He came down the stairs of the veranda and put his arm around Mrs. Parker. “Don’t you look glorious.”
“It was wise of you to say that,” responded Mrs. Parker, “because flattery might get you everywhere.”
“Are you hinting you have good news for me?” He squeezed her shoulder gently, and she wished he hadn’t. There was something not genuine about his gesture. There was something false about his greeting and his haste in directing her to the subject. He’s rehearsed this, she decided, and I have to improvise my role in this comedy.
She looked up into his matinee idol face with a smile she remembered using the night she decided to sacrifice her virginity. “If it’s good news you want, you’ve got it. But this isn’t the time to discuss it.”
“We have to discuss it soon.” The urgency in his voice alarmed her.
“Are y
ou suggesting you’re planning to abandon your guests before the evening’s out?”
Woollcott interrupted them. “Have you no kind words of welcome for us?” They followed him up the stairs into the house, Woollcott examining the decor of the grand hallway through his pince-nez, which he held in his right hand about an inch above the crown of his nose. “What an unusual decor!” Van Weber found a smile. “Who designed this dump, Count Dracula?”
A flunky was hurrying to Lacey Van Weber. He said something they couldn’t hear. Van Weber announced, “The Wussexes’ yacht is entering the bay. They’ll be docking in a few minutes.”
“Oh, goodie. Dear old Fred and Elfreda,” said Woollcott with undisguised venom.
“Are you a friend of Fred’s?” asked Kaufman.
“Most of Fred’s friends are either dead or dishonoured.”
Van Weber was leading them on the long walk to the rear of the house which would bring them into the terraced gardens leading down to the dock where the yacht would moor.
“The last mile,” said Woollcott in an aside to Mrs. Parker.
“He’s planning to blow the party early,” she said hastily, hoping she wasn’t overheard.
“I see. Maybe he’s foreseen his little plot just might backfire.”
“There was an item about Cassidy’s suicide in one of the papers this morning. That might have triggered their change of plans.”
“Might have triggered?” Woollcott didn’t disguise his dismay.
Neysa asked breathlessly, “Have you looked in the dining room? He’s got chairs by Marcel Breuer!”
“Neysa, stop looking like the little match girl.” Kaufman’s face was a perfect portrait of utter contempt and loathing. “When the hell do we get to the end of this tour?”
Van Weber had led them to the rear terraces where a six-piece orchestra was bouncily offering “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No Mo’.” Somehow Baragwanath managed to capture a waiter, and they were given drinks. It was like a replay of the Thursday night party at Neysa’s. Mrs. Parker recognized almost everyone, except that Florenz Ziegfeld was now accompanied by his wife, the glorious, redheaded Billie Burke. She wore a brilliantly shimmering dress which reminded Mrs. Parker of a magnificent chandelier she’d seen at Versailles.
